Man of the People

Jack Moreno (Joseph Calleia) is a lawyer in an Italian neighborhood. He is truly a man of the people and helps the little guy whenever he can. Abbey Reid (Florence Rice) comes from the rich establishment and is taken with him. To his dismay, he is commanded to work for mob boss William J. Grady (Thomas Mitchell).

This is a crime drama B-movie. There is nothing wrong with it and nothing terribly exciting about it either. Calleia could be more handsome or more charismatic. Rice is perfectly WASPy. Mitchell isn't the best mob boss. He's not scary enough. All in all, this is fine. The story is fine. The couple could be better.

B-movies are not necessarily bad movies...though many people think this is the case. The term 'B-movie' was originated to refer to the second feature at a double-feature. The A-picture was usually the more prestigious film....costing more and having bigger stars. The Bs, on the other hand, were short (about an hour) and often gave supporting actors a chance to be in the lead. In "Man of the People", Joseph Calleia got to strut his stuff as a leading man, as usually he played a heavy. Oddly, however, this B clocks in at a little over 80 minutes...very long for a B.

Calleia plays Jack Moreno, a poor guy from the poorer part of New York. Despite this, he's worked hard and when the film begins he's just obtained his law degree and passed the bar....and he's finally a lawyer. However, after taking a case with a defendant who's tied in with the mob, he has to make a choice...will he continue this sort of work or try something more honest and honorable. When he chooses to try running for District Attorney and doing the right thing, the strength of the mob machine shows itself.

Calleia was good...which isn't surprising, though seeing him in the lead and NOT playing an evil guy is a bit unusual! As far as the film goes, it's neither a great B nor a cheap and forgettable picture. Instead, it's very watchable and well made...and great for fans of Bs.

Even a B picture from MGM looked a whole lot like an A film from some other studios. No box office stars appear in Man Of The People, but in this case that only makes this one more real.

Fiorello LaGuardia would have identified with Joseph Calleia in this one. He's a newly minted lawyer and just about to hang out a shingle in the old neighborhood. But the local Tammany like organization comes calling and says join or you will starve. Calleia has no choice but to join and at first he's thinking he's done the right thing.

But while boss Thomas Mitchell does help constituents in certain things he also gets a cut of a lot of corruption. One egregious examle was a 'gold finding machine' in which a lot of Calleia's friends were bilked.

The political machine as in a lot of urban areas was Irish dominated as personified by Thomas Mitchell. Mitchell wants Calleia in with him to control the more recent arriving Italians. But Calleia proves not easy to handle.

Calleia's character in a lot of ways is based on Fiorello LaGuardia who spent his life fighting Tammany Hall corruption. I'm sure the then mayor of New York City must have loved this film. And as it turned out he was running for a second term as mayor in 1937 when Man Of The People came out.

One sour note in the proceedings, Ted Healy plays a typical Tammany Hall character and he was more annoying than funny. And his actions really don't ring true with the character we are first presented with.

Still Man Of The People is not a bad political movie. It would have been an A film at RKO or Republic.

But they do need someone to make sure the script works and a director who can deal with zigs. Joseph Calleia -- best known as the heavy in GILDA --gets a chance to star in this programmer as a lawyer who joins the political machine and then fights it. He is especially fine in a couple of underplayed small scenes.

He is ably abetted by fine supporting actors like Jonathan Hale, Ted Healy and the always wonderful Thomas Mitchell. But the story veers and rushes off two thirds of the way through and before you can catch your breath, it's over. Was this originally broached as a vehicle for someone like Spencer Tracy and then bounced down? Director Marin never got out of the B movies, and his inability to direct Calleia in the second half shows why. Visually the picture is fine, with the usual MGM gloss. But even the best character actor needs the occasional hint from his director, and it looks like Marin could not supply it.

Man of the People is an odd feature that starts out looking like it's going to be a story about a man battling against machine politics, and then turns into a picture about a crusading attorney. The always fine Joseph Calleia stars as Joe Moreno, an Italian-American lawyer struggling to get by until a local political boss (the estimable Thomas Mitchell) takes him under his wing in exchange for defending one of his corrupt cronies. After winning the case after a remarkable courtroom sequence involving gefilte fish, Moreno has had his fill of being an organization man and tenders his resignation. He then proceeds to join up with an independently minded DA (an uncredited Frank Reicher) to take on a confidence scheme involving a gold detecting machine. Though the end result is a somewhat disjointed film, it's never less than watchable, and Calleia delivers an excellent, subtle performance.